RVA (random voluntary activities) continued

So I started out not being able to find enough to do, and now am super busy all the time. I'm not sure if I spend more time volunteering or sitting in meetings about volunteering, but both are a necessary part of the work I suppose. The Robin Hood summer camp went a lot better this week than it did last week-- lots of games, sports, dancing, tae kwon doe... the kids loved it. I also wrote new words to a popular song here called "Que levante la mano", figured out the guitar chords to it and presented it to the kids on Wednesday and Thursday. I was surprised at how well it went over. I was expecting maybe a few of the girls to be excited about it and the boys to just be embarassed about singing, but instead pretty much all of them tried to sing all the words, and when it came to the chorus they really didn't even need me there. They all sang really loudly and enthusiastically waved their hands in the air. Jennifer suggested that they take the lyric sheets home and learn the words so that at the end of the camp they can all present it together, and I think that's a great idea but the one problem is that I'll be gone by next Wednesday, so I guess the only thing to do is teach another volunteer to play guitar in the span of a week. Hmm.

Meeting with Chiry was a wild goose chase. He's a great guy, and seems to be well-respected in the community, but he's also painfully unreliable. We had set up a meeting with him at 1:00 on Monday, but when 6 of us volunteers arrived at his hair salon, he wasn't there. Gaby called him on his cell phone and it turned out he's gone to the center of town. He said it would be better to have the meeting at 5. Well, at 2:30 Alia and I went to another meeting in Cancas (about a half hour from Mancora) about the special needs kids there and how the community can improve their situation. We weren't really sure why we were there other than to be physical (if not vocal) representatives of PaM, but it was interesting. We had to leave early to get back to Mancora for the meeting with Chiry, but again, when we arrived at his hair salon, nobody was there. Not even the other volunteers. So we stood there and waited for awhile. It was one of those moments where you suddenly think, "What the hell am I doing here?" Two gringas standing on the side of the road on the outskirts of Mancora, waiting for a flamboyantly gay Peruvian man to arrive in a moto-taxi so they can talk to him about gay sex and prostitutes and handing out condoms, in his hair salon. How did all the random events in my life lead up to this?

After a few minutes a moto-taxi passed, and Chiry was in it. "There he is! There he goes!" said Alia. I couldn't believe it. "Chiry!" I cried, as if calling after a lover who just walked out the door (or something like that). I don't know if he heard me, but the moto-taxi stopped and started to turn around. A couple minutes later it stopped in front of the hair salon, but instead of getting out and talking to us, Chiry just seemed to be avoiding eye contact. He started talking to the moto driver, then to a friend who was with him in the moto, then to some woman who drive up on a motorcycle to say hello. We just kind of stood there thinking, "He hates us, he totally despises us, he wants us to go away and leave him alone." Then Chiry got a call on his cell phone, and handed it over to me. It was Gaby. She said she had called Chiry earlier and he said today wasn't good for him to meet, maybe tomorrow, at noon. "Oh," I said. I got off the phone and apologized to Chiry.

"No, excuse ME for being in this state," he said. "A little drunk!" He giggled like a girl. "It's just that Saturday, Sunday, Monday... are rest days!"

"Haha, it's OK. So, we'll see you tomorrow at noon?" Chiry looked at me apprehensively. "You WILL be free tomorrow at noon, right?"

"Oh YES, I'll be free, don't worry about THAT. Just give me a call beforehand though, OK?"

Surprisingly, we actually did end up meeting with him the next day at noon, and it went pretty well, though we still couldn't quite figure out to what extent he really needed or wanted our help with his work. The one thing he seemed to really want us to help with was giving out condoms and information on the beach. Evidently he goes to the beach sometimes in the afternoon and finds groups of teenagers playing soccer or volleyball, and uses that as an opportunity to give them some "chocolates" as he calls them, and a quick informal lesson on why you should use them. He said that as many of us could come along as felt inclined. So that's what we did, on Thursday. Me, Alia, Sarah, and another Sarah that just arrived a few days ago. The problem was that Chiry showed up for that rendevous a little late (he'd been busy cutting hair) and by the time we got to the beach it was almost 5, and most of his targeted population had already left. Instead we targeted an older crowd who sat around plastic beach tables drinking beer. I couldn't help laughing when he told the first guy that the four of us girls were from the United States, we were living in la Casa de Calzado and he could also come to us for anything he needed. I don't know, in the context of handing out condoms and of us being a bunch of young gringas, I think that "anything" could easily be taken the wrong way.

One thing we noticed was that even though a lot of women kept asking him for condoms, Chiry was focusing more on handing them out to males and didn't give as many to women. Afterwards Sarah asked him why that was. Chiry said that he usually doesn't offer them to girls because they often take it as an insult.

"But what about the women who were asking for them?"

His response to this was that he gives more to men because men are more promiscuous. They're more likely to go out and get drunk and do something stupid. Whereas women are more controlled. To me, that sounds like even more reason to give condoms to the women. When it comes down to it, if the man is drunk, who's more likely to pull out a condom? But there's really no arguing with Chiry. Anyway, you've got to admire a guy who stands up and does the kind of work he does in such a conservative, homophobic environment. And manages to be respected at the same time.

We arranged another group meeting with him on Monday at his hair salon, followed by another trip to the beach, this time earlier in the day. Actually, he was the one to request these activities, which surprised us because we thought Mondays were one of his rest days. But I guess we shall see.